CRIME
The police in East Jutland have once again received reports about pirate taxis operating in Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city.
Published: 29 December 2022 13:39 CET
The police in East Jutland have received new reports of illegal taxis operating in Aarhus, Denmark’s second-largest city. Photo by Waldemar Brandt / Unsplash
Roughly a week ago, the police issued a warning, asking people not to get into pirate taxis (that is, illegal or unauthorised taxis).
However, the authorities were forced to repeat their warning on Thursday, as the police have received two similar reports about fraud in connection with pirate taxi fares in Aarhus in the past 24 hours.
The police in East Jutland re-issued their warning in their daily report on Thursday.
Two cases of fraud
On the night of Tuesday around midnight, a 23-year-old man, who was going home to Solbjerg, and a 40-year-old man, who was driven home to his residence in Skødstrup, were defrauded.
At the end of their taxi trips, the men attempted to pay by credit card, and both had trouble making card payments in the taxi.
The following day, the aggrieved parties realised that they had been robbed of several thousand kroner, according to the police.
“We urge once again that you never take a pirate taxi home – no matter how tempting it may be. Plan in advance how to get home from the city if you don’t have the opportunity to get a real taxi on the busiest Christmas nights.
“Unfortunately, we see several examples of young people being cheated out of many thousands of kroner,” the warning from the East Jutland Police states.
The police are investigating the cases more closely and would like to hear from other people who may have experienced similar fraud involving failed Dankort payments after a trip home from the city in a pirate taxi.
Previous cases and fraud details
Around December 20th, multiple people decided to use a taxi to get home due to the cold winter weather, which ended up being a pirate taxi, and the customers involved were defrauded.
Victims stated that the pirate taxi looked like an ordinary taxi from the outside with all the taxi signs on the side and a glowing taxi sign, the newspaper Aarhus lokalavisen reports.
The type of fraud was the same as the one reported on Thursday. When paying, the customers were informed that an error had occurred, and they were asked to re-enter their card code several times.
That resulted in the customers discovering that their accounts were credited for several thousand kroner the next day.